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Plasma screen stands

I've been procrastinating long enough and need to knock out eight freestanding supports for some plasma screens to go in some corporate place somewhere.

Short story is they get a 3/8" thick x 32" diameter steel base, which also gets a 5" x 1/8" skirt. Two 3" OD tubes rise up about 60" and a 1/8" plate gets welded between them to which the factory bracket mounts, and then the screens will hang from that.

Here's the start:

1) Eight bases, the template, and the drop. Heavy metal.
2) Eight mounting plates waiting to bridge the gap.
3) The bases get bolted to the ground, but they still need to be levelled, so I'm making three adjustable pads for each base, which will get welded to the underside of the disks and be concealed by the skirt. Parts is parts.
4) My super fancy jig.
5) Zing-bang.

If your shear is rolling the edge then the blades are not sharpened or not adjusted correctly. There should be no rolled edge on a sheared plate.

I should clarify. The blades make a clean cut. I wrote that it rolled the edge, which is misleading. The cut is clean, but the plate distorts/curls over the 5" width. This hand shear has a 4" blade, so I have to take the cut in two bites.

Every shear I've ever used distorts the metal to some degree. Every piece of metal I've had sheared by someone else has been distorted to some degree. This applies to manual, electric, hydraulic, whatever. Every piece of paper I've cut with a pair of scissors has a curl to it.

When I need to cut something with no distortion, I use a saw... or a water jet.

On a similar note, I use a drill press (or water jet) to cut holes rather than a punch, which distorts the metal.

Thanks for looking.

Last edited by chrisgay@sbcglo; 09-05-2008 at 01:45 PM.
Reason: clarity